Organized by Raymund Ryan, Carnegie Museum of Art curator of architecture, Laboratory of Architecture/Fernando Romero presents the ambitious designs of young Mexican architect Fernando Romero and his practice, LAR (Laboratory of Architecture), is explored in this exhibition of 20 key projects. Illuminated models are complemented by large photographs of Mexico City that depict the context for much of Romero’s work.
Educated at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Romero (born 1971) worked from 1997 to 2000 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, for Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), where he was project leader for the Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal (completed 2005). In 1999, Romero established LCM (Laboratorio de la Ciudad de México) in Mexico City as an architectural practice, a studio to investigate urban phenomena, and an organizer of cultural events. Romero’s principal architectural activities are now carried out through LAR (Laboratory of Architecture), located opposite the home of Mexico’s greatest architect, Luis Barragán (1902–1988).
“Mexico has long had a key role in the visual arts,” says Ryan. “Painters, muralists, photographers, and architects such as Barragán contributed greatly to Modernism and to a discussion of how nations might develop economically and culturally. Fernando is a leading figure in the discussion today of how to apply advanced architectural thinking to the needs of contemporary society.”
Visitors to Laboratory of Architecture/Fernando Romero will first encounter a sequence of projected images of Mexico City, one of the world’s most populous conurbations, by photographer Adam Wiseman, together with still images by photographer Pablo Lopez of sites where Romero is working. The innovative research conducted by Romero and his colleagues on Mexico City (published in 2000 as ZMVM —Zona Metropolitana del Valle de México) and on the contentious border between Mexico and the United Stated (published in 2008 as Hyperborder) is graphically re-presented in the exhibition.
Carnegie Museum of Art Web Site
|
TRAVEL CALENDAR
